Madness control settings in Brazil: a sociological analysis of psychiatric hospitalizations

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to perform a sociological analysis of psychiatric hospitalizations in Brazil. After the psychiatric reform in the country, the psychiatric internments have gained more restrictive dimensions, being prioritized as a matter of urgency and emergency. However, the medical practice of psychiatric hospitalization combined with other exclusion mechanisms, such as compulsory hospitalizations and therapeutic communities, has been presented as an important strategy for population management and control. Based on the works of Michel Foucault, more specifically, O Poder Psiquiátrico (2006) and Em Defesa da Sociedade (1999), Estado de Exceção (2004) of Giorgio Agamben, there’s an attempt to investigate the networks of power, knowledge and the subjects that make up the practice of psychiatric hospitalization and how it is mobilized. The option for this object of study is guided by the hypothesis that, in addition to its disciplinary effects, psychiatric hospitalizations are characterized as real spaces of exception, in which internees are deprived of their rights and submitted to sovereign power.